President Trump is meeting with his counterparts at the G-7 summit in France, where he walked back previous statements on trade with China.

Ambassador Andris Razāns has served as the Latvian ambassador to the United States and Mexico since July of 2012 and 2013 respectively. He spoke with Illinois Public Media about the challenges facing the European Union, particularly Greece’s debt problems and Russian aggression and about how Latvia gained its independence through song. 

(Editor's note: U.S. and EU officials begin talks Monday on an ambitious free-trade agreement that promises to create thousands of new jobs and generate billions of dollars of new trade. But negotiators must overcome barriers created by cultural and philosophical differences over sectors like agriculture. One example, in Europe the cultivation of genetically modified crops is banned, while in the U.S., they are a central part of agricultural production. NPR's Jackie Northam visited a farm in Delaware and NPR's Eleanor Beardsley one in Burgundy, France, to look at just how deep-seated some of these differences are.)